Women now dominate the workforce. Does it spell trouble for men and boys? | Opinion

Editor’s note: Welcome to Double Take, a conversation from opinion writer David Mastio and editor Yvette Walker, tackling news with differing perspectives and respectful debate. David Mastio: Female nonfarm workers in the United States now outnumber males by about 200,000 jobs according to Axios. That might not seem like much, but I think this could be a turning point in relations between men and women in the U.S. akin to the moment that women started outnumbering men at college graduations around 1982 after surpassing them in college enrollment in the late 1970s.

Missouri has been like this for a while. We’ve been on the edge of female dominance becoming a permanent feature of our economy for a while now. The tipping point has been reached before.

During the Great Recession and COVID women briefly surpassed men before men came back. This time feels different because we are not in the same kind of deep economic shock as during those previous periods. As was the case with women surpassing men in education, there will be social consequences to the change, as we reach new milestones one at a time.

Women surpassed men in PhDs in 2006. Yvette Walker: Hmm, I can’t wait to see where you are going with this. David: I watched this happen at USA TODAY when I worked there.

When I joined USA TODAY in 1995, it was male dominated. Except for the Life section, all the top editors were men. In 1999, the woman who hired me for my first opinion section newspaper job, Karen Jurgensen, was named as USA TODAY’s first female editor.

In the years that followed the paper completely flipped, becoming majority female in the 2010s. Today six of the eight top jobs at the paper are held by women. (Funny story – the people who gave me my break into opinion journalism were a liberal black guy, a liberal white woman and a gay guy who used to be spokesman for the Democratic Party.) This change in the work force is going to have consequences, some of which won’t be apparent for years to come.

In the past, as men have fallen from their perch atop the social hierarchy, not all the consequences have been salutary. Think about the rise of fatherless children, skyrocketing divorce rates, teen pregnancy and now a growing underclass of young men who fail to launch as they absorb a diet of endless social media, porn and video games. If you look into the stats deeply, the problems are concentrated in the lower three-quarter of the income scale.

Men at the top are mostly doing fine. We need to stop what we are doing and launch an all-hands effort to relaunch manhood in America for the have-nots and even the middle class. It feels like the guys are just giving up.

Yvette: So, this is a plea for the guys to, well, man up? Or is there an implication of something sinister in the continued rise of women in the workforce? First, I want to acknowledge that this is a traditional study that, to my knowledge, uses conventional definitions of men and women.

Next, let’s take a look at the numbers. More women live in the United States than men and have done so for some time, although the sizeable gap appears to be declining. (It was 5 million more women in 2010 and trends show it will decline to 3 million by 2027.) But residency and entering the workforce aren’t the same, so let’s take a closer look at your concerns.

More women getting their PhDs than men? Fewer men getting off their butts? I agree that I’d like to see more people seek opportunities for advancement and self-development, but what’s the harm if women are choosing it?

It might not matter that more women are in the workforce because we already control the spending.

According to surveys compiled in 2024, two data points are important in this conversation: Women control or influence 85% of consumer spending per TechCrunch, and 2), the numbers are trending upward. Nielsen reports that by 2028, women will hold on to consumer spending and also are expected to control 75% of all discretionary spending. So, we’re in more jobs, and we’re making the calls about how to spend that money.

Win win for us? David: Wow, is that shortsighted. We’re in this together.

The yin and yang of men and women covered the world in vibrant civilizations men built to impress their wives and the ladies they were having affairs with. Yeah, it wasn’t fair and women got the short end of the stick for what, millions of years? But the fact is that if we are going to build something better, we’re going to do it together.

The goal, I thought, was equality. Well, today women earn 60% of all bachelor’s degrees and thrive in the information economy and in caring jobs like healthcare and education, which have become female-dominated while we integrate the last bastions of maleness like Boy Scouts (RIP) and regulate and trade away male-dominated work, like homebuilding and mining. Yvette: Yes, you’re right about being in it together (not that weird yin and yang part, however).

David: If you have ever been the parent of a young girl, you get flooded with appeals to get her into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), after all, the girls gotta conquer the last places where men are the majority. Where are the equally lavishly-backed programs getting men into teaching and medicine where they have fallen behind? I might be stereotyping here, but most women want a man and most women are going to need one to have a kid.

What are women going to do as flailing, failing men opt out of society and leave them alone to hold the fort? I know men at their best and at their worst and I can tell you society is not going to be better off when women sit around and sip chardonnay while they discuss literature and men wander in packs, unattached and unmotivated looking, to find the best porn on their smart phones. Yvette: Yes, you are stereotyping, but really, is that where we are headed?

And I don’t drink chardonnay. David: I am worried for my kids, boys and girls alike. I don’t think they are going to be happy in the world to come, in 20 or 30 years, if we don’t seriously address what is happening to boys and men.

That means building institutions where men can come together to build each other up. It means reforming education which has become too tilted toward girls’ strengths and often ignores boys’ needs and interests. We need to stop denigrating toxic masculinity and build up a vision of heroic manhood to aspire to.

We need to stop being a society where men like Trump and Tiger Woods are what boys aspire to be and give them instead a roadmap to becoming the creators and builders who forged America, its economy and its technological dominance.